1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a remote auction system using a computer network and a securities exchange system operated by the remote auction system. More specifically, the present invention relates to the division (making electronic stocks) of rights/obligations of properly and automatically adjusted transaction prices of securities related to a life settlement policy.
2. Related Art
Many conventional online auction systems allow a number of people to participate in auctions without imposing any limitation on the number of people. Accordingly, even a bidder having insufficient funds to purchase a commodity or a seller or a bidder having his/her name registered on a black list because of illegal actions in past auctions can participate in an auction. Further, since it is difficult for one person to buy an expensive commodity through an online auction, there is a need for a system to allow the purchase of such a commodity by a plurality of people. However, there is no mechanism available to provide a service for sharing proprietary rights by an unspecified number of participants according to their invested amounts.
High-price commodities each shared by a plurality of purchasers include not only a physically existing “article”, but also a life settlement such as a viatical and a life settlement or an obligation to pay insurance. It is a matter of course that there has never been a mechanism for providing a service to make it possible to share a life settlement policy. In order to further understand the present invention, the right to receive insurance money (from viatical and life settlement policies) will be described.
As can be seen in many cases in the USA where medical costs are high, low-income Americans have difficulties paying monthly insurance premiums and many middle class Americans (hereinafter referred to as the “insured”) have difficulties paying expensive medical fees are often told by a doctor that the estimated remaining life span of the insured is short due to disease.
In this case, the insured is continuously undergoing medical treatment in his/her lifetime by selling the insurance proceeds to be received after the insured dies. That is, the price of the viatical and life settlement insurance policy is determined according to the assumption of the estimated remaining life span of the insured calculated by the doctor. Then, the insured asks a person having a right to receive the insurance money after the death of the insured (a family member or the like) to waive the right, and the insured sells the right to a purchaser to receive the insurance money. In fact, receiving a portion of the insurance money in advance eases the economic distress of the insured and helps the insured to live better during his/her remaining years.
However, there is no institution or system for fairly judging the accuracy of a market price of a viatical or a life settlement insurance policy based on an assumption concerning the estimated remaining life span of an insured calculated by a doctor. Further, there has not been provided a mechanism for sharing a viatical and life settlement policy by an unspecified number of persons while ensuring the fairness of the viatical and life settlement policy. Under such circumstances, there are problems regarding a viatical and life settlement insurance policy from respective viewpoints of the insured, the medical field and the purchaser.
(1) Problem for Insured:
When an insured attempts to sell a viatical and life settlement policy regarding the person's own estimated remaining life span calculated by a doctor, the insured tries to contact a purchaser via an agency (insured→agency→purchaser). On the other hand, an institution or an assessment system serving as a so-called “board of fair trade” for judging the appropriate price of each viatical and life settlement insurance policy does not exist and an accurate market price of the viatical and life settlement insurance policy is therefore always unclear.
Consequently, many agencies deliberately estimate the price of a viatical and life settlement insurance policy by making use of the facts that there is no appropriate market price of the viatical and life settlement policy and that insured persons desire to receive insurance money as soon as possible. The price of a viatical and life settlement policy according to the estimated remaining life span calculated by a doctor can be determined based on a standard price set and changes made optionally by each agency in order to purchase the viatical and life settlement policy at an unreasonably low price, and the insured and his/her family members put up with the low price. Further, even when the insured is aware of the injustice and files an official complaint, the agency is not accused of violation of the Securities Act because the viatical and life settlement policy is not a negotiable instrument. As a result, a social problem arises in that the insured and his/her family members cannot make any complaint but reluctantly accept the unreasonably low price of the viatical and life settlement policy.
(2) Problem for the Medical Field:
When the insurance of an insured person (a patient) is canceled because of an unpaid insurance premium, payment of medical bills such as treatment fees, hospitalization fees and surgery fees are likely to be delayed. Accordingly, there has been an actual case where a hospital has no choice but to stop treating the insured (the patient) in order to collect the unpaid medical fees and prevent further accumulation of unpaid medical fees.
However, strict application of this rule results in abandonment of the patient who is unable to pay the medical bills, and this leads to a moral dispute in the medical field. On the other hand, there is another problem of nonexistence of means to pay expensive fees to a doctor, regularly prepare compensation for medical accidents, and collect unpaid medical fees. Actually, medical fees not paid by patients often become bad debts. Accordingly, there has been desired a quick solution for sound hospital management without interrupting medical treatment on a patient who has unpaid medical bills. One example of a problem to be solved is that prudent hospital management cannot be realized without the foregoing system for purchasing viatical and life settlement policies.
(3) Problem for the Purchaser:
As described above, the insured can contact the purchaser via the agency. The purchaser needs to contact the insured via the agency (the purchaser→the agency→the insured). That is, anonymity can be maintained during communication between the insured and the purchaser so that only the agency can transfer information exchanged between the insured and the purchaser. Accordingly, it is possible for the agency to deliberately manipulate the information and incorrectly disclose the information required for investment in the viatical and life settlement policy. Consequently, a problem arises in that sales are carried out in such a manner that the agency gives only favorable information to the purchaser and hides unfavorable information.
In addition, according to the basic structure of the conventional viatical and life settlement policy, the longer the insured lives, the less the purchaser collects. Therefore, the purchaser may not want the insured to live for a long time. For example, the possibility cannot be denied of killing the patient who lives longer than the estimated remaining life span. Further, any family member of the insured might claim the viatical and life settlement policy once waived at the time of payment of the insurance money to the purchaser after the insured has died, and demand the insurance money from the purchaser or harass and annoy the purchaser. For the above reasons, it is essential that a trade between the insured and the purchaser is carried out indirectly via the agency with anonymity maintained so that the insured and the purchaser do not know each other.
Thus, the conventional viatical and life settlement system is enabled by purchase and resale activities by the agency instead of direct trade between the insured (the patient) and the purchaser. Thus, it is easy for the agency to perform illegal mediation yet there is no organization to supervise such an illegal action. Accordingly, many dishonest actions are carried out by agencies taking advantage of the deficiency of the rule. Accordingly, the correct and appropriate market price of the viatical and life settlement policy needs to be calculated and a fair trade needs to be carried out between the purchaser and the insured based on the market price instead of the conventional way of estimating the price of the viatical and life settlement policy based on the agreement between the doctor and the agency.
Even when a fair trade can be directly carried out between the purchaser and the insured based on the appropriate market price, the insured might need to use a pseudonym for his/her personal information (including a name, an address, a contact destination and the like wherefrom the insured is identifiable) so that the personal information is not disclosed by negligence unless a written consent agreed by the insured and his/her family members exists. Further, a direct fair trade between the purchaser and the insured while obtaining each other's personal information and correlating the personal information with the appropriate market price by adding unique IDs to the purchaser and the insured to identify each other or encrypting the IDs.